Topic: on charcoal; tools and techniques

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Posted at October 3, 2006, 9:06 am:

Hi,

I started drawing recently, and have been struggling with the medium (I have been into sculpture for over a year and got into drawing because it will help my sculpture, but paper and medium behave so differently from clay!).

First, a friend recommended a B charcoal pencil. I tried this, but the shading was horrible; it rode on the surface, and if it were a printer, the resolution would be an order of magnitude worse than the decade-old b&w laserprinter we used to have. And worse, it could NOT erase Then I got a pad of newsprint; that made it much smoother. A white rubber eraser took off the charcoal pencil more thoroughly than the kneaded eraser, too. But not all that smooth, and erasability was still sub-par :-/ So then I tried vine; scary stuff, it was so delicate! And I got some stumps and a chamois (is that right, the leather pad?). My first drawing like this was mediocre, but a learning experience
I got a pad of medium-coarsness "laid" paper, and my latest drawing is turning out great. The coarser paper helps with the vine, and I'm getting the hang of vine charcoal, fluff that it is, and learning to enjoy its properties.
But I'm wondering if I should return to using my smoother stock; details are difficult when the grain of the paper has 1/16" spacing, and tonal gradients not as even?
The B pencils are quite dark, darker than the vine can achieve when laid on at its heaviest, and so if I need a detail line that the vine has trouble with, the pencil is; is it worth getting some variety with harder charcoal pencils than B, for lighter detail lines?
-if so, what are the compressed sticks for, how do they compare with the pencils; with their geometry, perhaps they are meant for broad shading and not to be sharpened into detail tools? Nevertheless, can they achieve very light shading?
-and, what is the difference between oil-based and oil-free charcoal pencils? Yes, I know the literal difference; but what is the practical result? Does one erase more easily? Does one go onto the paper more smoothly or waxier? If the oil-free is sometimes dissolved in water like a gray watercolor pencil, if that is the reason for it, then that's irrelevent to me, for example.



thanks!
-Bernard

Original of the message was taken from http://www.conceptart.org/forums/

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